Emergency!

I'm pretty sure that I followed the instructions perfectly. Some of my plants died unfortunately (pretty sure that I "overbleached"). I keep checking my nitrates/nitrites and they are fine, but now my water smells funny, and the fish are gasping at the top for air. I add a powerhead, and all is fine although the tank doesn't look appealing. So last night I take out the powerhead (which was in for several days) thinking that things are okay, and I wake up this morning to more gasping! Anyone have any suggestions?
 
Cds, in order to get the best possible suggestions from the people on this site, I recommend that you list everything you've done step by step, from start to finish, and list as many of your tank parameters that you know. ;)
 
Last edited:
BEST GUESS: Chorine in wood. Wood absorbs chorine and a simple wash does not remove it, must be soaked. Wood is probably leaking chlorine into tank and affecting gills of fish. Do a water change and add extra chlorine remover.
 
Here's what I did:

I did a big cleaning on the tank in prep for adding plants. Things were going fine until I added iron tabs in the soil... several weeks later I had a hair algae infestation. So I did the bleach bath on the plants and the driftwood, washed them off, and reintroduced them all to the tank... and have since used a sh*tload of chlorine remover. Should I do another water change? Take out the wood?? I mean, I only dipped the wood for a short while, how much could it have absorbed?? And it's been about two weeks... shouldn't things have stabilized by now??

Please help!

Cds
 
Keep the power heads in there for a while, but turn off CO2 (it will be dissipated anyway). This would get more O2 into water, and/or dissipate chlorine (if there is some more chlorine). Wood absorbs stuff as good as carbon but releases it back into water at a slow pace. Yes remove the wood and put into another container of water to soak for a while (do you smell chlorine on wood??). Check water for Ammonia, your nitrite is kind of high.
Have you done another water change?? 20-25%??

Also do not thing FE (Iron) causes algae, isolated incident.
 
by the way, just before the algae bath, I noticed that some of the algae was a reddish color... any idea what caused it?
 
Originally posted by cds
by the way, just before the algae bath, I noticed that some of the algae was a reddish color... any idea what caused it?
Click to expand...
Never heard of red FW algae. Maybe brownish red?? Turf algae??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom